I just got a new Epson Perfection V350 scanner. It seems to do a great job scanning the negatives & the slides I've tried so far, but I'm having problems with scanning printed things. I have an old scrapbook page - basically just a piece of cardstock with pictures attached to it - that I'm trying to scan. I've been using File>import in pse to scan. The scan is in 24 bit color, at 600 dpi, and I've had the unsharp mask set at medium. The preview looks great, colors nice and crisp and bright, but when I actually do the scan, it looks terrible - kind of like looking at it through a dirty window. I have no idea why it would change so much from the preview
I actually tried putting a blanket over the whole scanner to see if it would help (I thought maybe one of my kids opened the scanner part way through and let too much light in), but it didn't change anything. It's really frustrating - that's too much money to spend on something that is doing that poor of a job!
I'm also wondering - do you do any color correcting, sharpening, that kind of thing, when you scan, or just save all the editing for photoshop?

I don't have that specific scanner but I do scan through File>Import in PSE 5. I was going to suggest maybe because of the thickness of the page that it wasn't in good contact with the bed, but if you used a blanket over the top, that should hold the top down enough for it to make contact with the scan bed. Sorry I'm not much help there.

Mostly just bumping this btt.
I did find if I adjusted the brightness of the scan in pse after it's done, I can get it looking more normal, but that seems a little strange to me, and I have to adjust it quite a bit (like -100).